Favored Sons: A Sketch In Black and White
by Verdot
Summary: Rufus Shinra, from exile to king without hardly trying. The legacy of favored sons. Written for FF Exchange Round 2.


In all of history there were always princes, heir apparents waiting for the chance to finally take up their rights by birth and set their will upon the world. The setting had changed, but the game remained the same. He was born and had a silver spoon thrust firmly into his mouth to prevent him from crying.

When you stopped trying to cry, things got a lot clearer

_ooo_

Junon was always wet and cold, two things that made an awful combination. The smell was something that someone got used to after a while, but the wet and cold was uncomfortable. All the money and power in the world couldn't get rid of chilled bones and the constant feeling of moisture on the skin and hair.

Rufus knew his father to be mostly foolish, but when it came to punishment he was strangely ingenious. He hadn't played his hand right with AVALANCHE and he had two SOLDIER shadows following him at all times.

At least the place had large windows, even if there was nothing much to see from them. A tactical nightmare if someone wanted to kill him, but then, maybe that was part of the implicit threat. _You can be ended if you displease me further._

All the time to plot and think and none of the ability to take action.

The old man still didn't completely trust the Turks, not after their insurrection, either. Which was why the First Class rejects were flanking the door instead of some sleek shadows in suits. He couldn't help but think of just how unaesthetic these bulky science projects were, in their jewel-tone uniforms that smelled of New Money. He half expected their ridiculous swords to be gold plated and covered in diamonds.

Then again, they had some of the more expensive materia equipped.

Rufus sipped brandy, less because he liked it and more because he needed something to occupy his hands. Exile was starting to take the plastic sheen off of things; the bottom of his pants never quite got white again once Junon seeped into them, even after multiple washings. Midgar, for all of its trappings and filth could easily be wiped clean with enough effort.

He was studying his glass, counting the air bubbles from its locally manufactured imperfections when his PHS rang.

_ooo_

In the stories, cursed princes ended up in towers. Or unfavored sons of dynasties. But he had been incubated by the brightest sunlight, farthest above the pollution, and held no fantasies about normalcy. Glass and steel were his crib and he saw purity in the untouched. Mother didn't want to spoil his visage with hugs, and Father didn't want to spoil his mind with useless chatter.

From high, all you could see were little specks where people should have been.

_ooo_

For all the advancements in military and energy technologies, Midgar was still far enough away to produce a fair amount of crackle when calling Junon. He raised a finger to his lips preemptively, so the SOLDIERs wouldn't decide it was the best time to swap stories. Not that they said much in his presence anyway.

_"It's Tseng, sir."_

As much as one couldn't help but respect Veld--old as he was all of Rufus's life, as if he'd simply been born middle aged--Rufus much preferred the Turks where Tseng was in charge. While he'd not quite inherited his mentor's stick up the ass, he had a terrible tendency towards making personal decisions on some things. But this tendency allowed him to be pushed in the right direction, if the right pressure points were applied.

"Go ahead." House arrest was almost a pathetic joke when information was right at his fingertips. He probably had a better finger on the pulse of the company than his father did, hidden in the lesser corners of the world like an insolent child. _You have to be strong, but only to a point._

_"There have been reports that Sephiroth has been sighted in various locations. The President has been worried."_

His father's bogeyman had always cast a shadow over how things should have happened. Rufus couldn't pinpoint the exact time that their main philosophies had diverged--if ever they were the same--but that overpowered experiment had been a fault line. So much had been poured into making that thing superhuman that the inevitable happened. The creature had realized that the chains about his neck were frail and broke them. Tseng had handed the final report about the general's pyrotechnic display in person...

He smiled, for the first time since being sent to Junon. "Reports from reliable sources? Isn't that thing supposed to be dead?"

_"We can't confirm that, but the President has ordered more guards around his person."_

More bogeymen. His father wanted custom-made-to-order loyalties boxed up and set on his desk. Everyone could be bought, but there was always someone that would pay better, and there was a gluttonous void at the center of the common folk. Hadn't he learned where the tensions finally broke? It was never about the money.

"I expect I'll be coming back to Midgar soon."

Then again, the elder Shinra was a parent by chromosomal contribution only. Sending him to Junon had been perhaps the only fatherly thing that he had ever done. It had given Rufus the time to reflect on how the President would inevitably fail, the kinds of mistakes that he wouldn't make when he inevitably took over. The lessons of the exiled having learned patience. He couldn't have planned it to fall so perfectly himself.

_"It's only a matter of time, sir."_

_ooo_

Light princes became Kings through fortune. Dark ones took it at the tip of the sword. What were you supposed to do when fortune dragged its feet and there was nothing but mild disgust left to feel?

_ooo_

He'd imagined something different for the last conversation with his father. For one, it was supposed to be in person where he could see the old man's jowls flap when he got particularly angry. Rufus had never particularly gotten attached to dreams; here was here and now was now, and he existed in the present. His father always existed for the past or the future, ignoring when he'd grown into the city's soft tumor and looking ahead into things that didn't exist. _There's no such thing as the Promised Land._

And secondly, it was supposed to end with Rufus's rightful and calculatedly violent ascension. Patricide was almost a cliche in times like these.

But it had been nothing more than static over the line, the President fumbling over words that held no meaning because there was no meaning left. Two minutes in Rufus had set his PHS on the table, and hung it up when the blubbering had stopped. The old man was afraid, and he really couldn't summon up the will to give a damn.

Two drops of potion on his tongue allowed him to sleep without that ever-grating rain or the banal chatter of his guards waking him up.

"Sir."

Almost.

"There had better be a good reason as to why you are waking me up."

"I know you said you didn't want to be disturbed, but Palmer needs to speak with you immediately."

He sincerely hoped that another reactor hadn't blown up. Rufus was no longer involved in that sort of thing and the copycats were tiresome. One should have been enough to get the point across. But they had to _believe_ their stupid notions.

Rufus extended his hand, beckoning the SOLDIER to put his PHS in it. There was no point in getting out of bed yet.

_"Vice President?"_

"Speaking. What did you do this time."

_"Nothing! It's... it's bad."_ The fear was evident in Palmer's voice, and it almost made him want to smile. Something more than some do-gooders and pipe bombs?

"Just get to the point."

_"The President is dead, we need you here now."_

It took him until he was buttoning his coat to realize that the sinking feeling in his stomach was the regret of not having said anything to his father when they last spoke. It took him until he had his shoes on to be over it.

He probably would have called him a coward, had he known beforehand.

_ooo_

Dark empires and their Kings are meant to be toppled. He knew it was a truth like princes waiting to rise. As much as he could taste it, want it, have it, power was fleeting.

But there were many ways to be immortal.

_ooo_

Rufus was carefully cleaning the gunpowder off his hands when Tseng finally walked in.

Midgar had changed in his absence, but Rufus had known that even steel could be organic and pavement wrinkle with age. The air still left a bad taste in the back of his throat. This meant that the projected figures on Mako energy hadn't been inflated, as he'd pessimistically figured while in Junon.

"We were unable to catch the terrorists, sir. They've taken A--the Ancient with them as well."

Rufus tossed the cloth down with enough force to stir Dark Nation, who was lounging in the corner of the office. _His_ office. He'd almost had half a mind to leave the old man's body on the desk, as some kind of trophy, some kind of reminder to those that came in with their complaints and concerns what sort of dynasty it was now. But he wanted a healthy amount of fear, not to look like a lunatic. They had plenty of that in the Science Department.

"Then you had better send more of them."

"I'll see to it myself."

There was still a little smudge on his thumb. Rufus tried to ignore it.

"Oh and Tseng. I have a question."

Just a fraction of tension in his neck, Rufus noted. "Yes?"

"What do you think the Promised Land is?"

It was no wonder that Tseng was the favored son of the Turks. There had to be any number of things going on with his mind--after all, hadn't he been trained by a man that had the gall to try to _leave?_--but it didn't show anywhere on his face. Rufus wasn't going to make the same mistake as his father and fully trust the Turks, or any employee. But they were only human, and were just as susceptible to the same sorts of concerns, the same sorts of fears. If he had learned anything from his power play years ago, it was that the things kept in the basement files were often the most useful.

He hated to think what it might have been like before surveillance technology was advanced as now.

"I think it is somewhere I have no place in."

It was good to find the believers. If Rufus were in a normal family with brothers and cousins instead of secretaries and assassins, he might have admitted his own feelings on the matter. But now, even more than ever he had to keep things close to the vest.

"That is interesting. I'll keep that in mind when we find it."

"Sir?"

His father had wanted the immortality of wealth, the power of greed. Rufus's biggest thorn, those terrorists, had provided him the impetus to go for his own desires. The things glimmered at the edge of glass in the sunlight, and filled his dreams.

"We all have our legacies to follow. You're dismissed now. I expect you to have made progress when you next report."

The greatest fear was the unknown. But if he knew it, proved that it only existed in fairytales? Well then, he had the power to tell them anything he wanted. It was the blank slate to set his era upon.

Or maybe he had spent too much time exiled in Junon. But the lights of Midgar had grown even brighter in his absence, and he liked to think that soon the night would be lighter than the day. And wouldn't that be something. The only gift his father ever gave him; the reactors, so that some day the sky would act as he wanted it to.

"But first we have to find it."

_ooo_

If a dark prince looked like a light one, could inevitability be averted?


End file.
